Editorial: Make sure tax breaks pay what they promise

Friday

Mar 28, 2014 at 2:00 AM

The Planning Board in the Town of New Paltz is sending a message that deserves to be studied and repeated. If a company wants to do business in the community, it had better be prepared to pay its share of the taxes.

The Planning Board in the Town of New Paltz is sending a message that deserves to be studied and repeated. If a company wants to do business in the community, it had better be prepared to pay its share of the taxes.

This is not to say that companies no longer will be welcome to apply for all those tax breaks that local industrial development authorities hand out. But it does mean that the balance has shifted, that the IDA there and any others who are watching need to understand that they no longer should be so quick to agree to what too often amount to sweetheart deals with little or no scrutiny or enforcement.

Year after year reports from throughout the state document the lack of return on this investment of tax dollars. IDAs here and elsewhere do not provide the kind of scrutiny that should be automatic when they are given the responsibility for handling so much of our money.

The New Paltz example was a clear case of not much return for a very large investment. The company that was proposing a new building to house students was hoping to make a profit and had as part of its business plan a generous subsidy in terms of taxes it would not pay or would defer. In the meantime, it was not going to produce many jobs, was going to increase local costs for services and was going to compete with many who pay all the taxes they are required to with no chance to reduce their burden.

If IDAs are going to maintain a level of confidence among the people who pay taxes, they need to provide much more information than they do now. It should be easy for them to put a scorecard on their websites showing the tax breaks they have granted, the promises that were made to receive that treatment, the success in meeting those goals and a bottom line conclusion showing the return on investment.